The United States and Japan will step up their defence cooperation to deal with the threat from nuclear-armed North Korea as tensions in East Asia remain high, officials from the two allies said on Thursday.

TAC Vic shock tactics a thing of the past

Violent and confronting images of fatal crashes will no longer feature in Victoria's traffic campaigns as the Transport Accident Commission moves its focus to the individual.

Launching the Towards Zero campaign in Melbourne on Wednesday, Roads Minister Luke Donnellan said the idea to get across was that the road toll is not just about numbers, but the brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who die on Victorian roads.

"If we're not aiming for zero, we are saying to ourselves that there is an acceptable level of road trauma," Mr Donnellan told reporters.